


The Wizard

by KeeperLavellan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Scenes, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3560504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperLavellan/pseuds/KeeperLavellan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A deleted scene from Apotheosis, pulled from the trash heap for my Froobie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wizard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [froobie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/froobie/gifts).



Forgetting the absolute ache of missing _Solas_ (whoever he was (the idea of him (the illusion of sa’lath (vhenan)))), the loss of him left a gaping hole in my defense. Not metaphorically, but actually. I was never meant to fight except alongside another mage, the very idea ran counter to Dalish belief.

It didn’t matter that hahren never fancied himself my Keeper, the principle remained, he was by far the more skilled mage and it was only natural for him take the lead. He controlled the flow battle with walls of ice and wells of gravity, concentrating our enemies so that my lightning could arc between them, so that my fire would engulf them, so that the Anchor could send them back to the void.

The more my faith in him grew, the more synergy we found— to the point that I refrained from studying the same magics so that our dyad would have a broader range. Without him, the scope of my spellcraft was wildly unbalanced. I could never find a rhythm in the clinical precision of Vivienne’s magic, while Dorian and I brought so many doubled spells to battle we might as well have been two left feet.

My magic resonated with Solas in a way theirs never could, not because we were elves, but because we were apostates. There was an intuitive quality that let spells flow like a conversation between us, a personal expression rather than a technical achievement. Once he let slip it that it felt as effortless as breathing, but now the rift between us had sucked the air from the room.

How could I follow him in battle after following him to Crestwood? How could I trust him to provide my defense when he’d taken my vallaslin? So when we were surprised by a red lyrium giant lumbering out of an unnoticed courtyard as we left the Suledin Keep, I had no faith that gravity itself would twist to alter the course of the boulder it threw.

Instead of standing my ground and calling a rift, I folded the veil. Instead of trusting an ice wall would appear my back, I chose to take shelter by the gate. Instead of having any mana left to call for lightning to stun the giant when it fell, I ran closer to spear it with my stave. Instead of being paralyzed, it gored me.

Somewhere very far away it seemed like I saw a mangled tusk plunge through a woman’s body. She looked down, green eyes wide and shocked, one hand splayed around the ivory, fingers trailing bloody smears along its length but unable to dislodge it. Then the giant reeled back onto its knees, lifting her feet off the ground, and she lost her staff. She tried to bring her foot up against the giant’s face to push herself free, but she was an elf and the distance too great.

Her mouth opened as if to scream but nothing happened; the muscles that would have done the work were indisposed. The giant shook its head and she went flying. The moment she landed in the snow, a woman that looked exactly like her rose up from the ground. Just a specter, just a spirit traced in violet light, hungry for death to feed her mistress.

The woman, no, she was barefaced, the _girl_ didn’t get up. Her mouth twitched as she listened to her blood sing out into the snow, and though the song was familiar, the pain was not, and she couldn’t quite grab at what was slipping away. But the specter knew what to do, throwing herself at the giant with fire, with lightning, with nightmares and chaos, drawing mana straight from the fade in unending waves.

A boy knelt over the girl, tipping a potion into her mouth as he frantically murmured some incoherent prayer, “Oh, gods, fuck. Solas! Ir abelas, emma ir ableas, fuck. Hurts! Vhenan, sa’lath, oh, gods, ma halani, let me see his face, inan! Hurts, gods, ma halani, Solas, Solas, Solas, Solas!”

A warrior flew in with her sword, thrusting it through the giant’s spine, and as its life force tried to bleed back to the fade the specter siphoned its energy into the palm of her hand. Death magic surged across the field, engulfing the girl just as she started to seize, just as a mage stepped through the fade, just as he reappeared at her side, just as one pale hand slipped around one bloodied and broken.

There was raw panic in his eyes, but cold determination in his magic. He pulled at the veil, tangling it up, changing the pace of the world around her, altering the flow of blood from her veins until it was sluggish and thick, stalling for time. Magic spiraled to reconstruct the tiny filaments of nerve endings, and the tubing of her veins, knitting together torn ligaments and smoothing splintered bones into something whole. It was not a familiar magic.

"Vhenan," he begged.

I snapped back into my own skin, sky bright above and my world exploding in pain, ice along my spine and fire on every nerve.

I was dead. Now I was merely dying.


End file.
